The Death of the Flower Girl
by Dragons Fly2
Summary: Aeris' death retold in brutal detail...will the last Ancient be forgotten, her flowers smashed into the dust?


I own nothing. Square owns everything. Read.  
  
****  
  
She remembered smiling.  
  
That, really, was all; the smile, warm and perfect, her legs folded under her, her hands entwined together.  
  
He had bent over her. She had grinned, tucking her dress around her ankles, seeing his face a mask of surprise, love and faith. Endearment had possessed her, flowered through her veins in a mounting crescendo, pulsing, palms sweaty and heart fluttering. O, how she loved the lopsided smirk on his angelic face, and his adoring gaze on hers.  
  
Suddenly and without warning his eyes went blood-red, and she had cried out, an agonizing song torn from her soul, ripping it from her fragile body and smashing it to pieces on the jagged rocks below.  
  
Something was wrong...no...no...not this way, no...no, please...not now, not when everything had been so perfect.  
  
Unable to stand any longer, she fell, sideways, to the ground. He caught her, and she gasped in horror, rocking side to side and retreating into the safe confines of his sheltering touch.  
  
The last thing she had seen was Cloud, gently cradling her, his deep blue eyes full of pain. And Tifa...Tifa, crying, weeping, as if she'd lost her best friend and not her most despised adversary.  
  
"I love you..." She choked, whispered, into his quivering ear. He clutched her hands, pouring all his strength through the gaping wound that stained her satin dress.  
  
"Don't die, Aeris! I won't loose you! I can't...I can't loose you!" He muttered, stroking her hair, her face, staring into her glossy eyes that were black with pain.  
  
"And...I will always love you..." She murmured as her saliva, red with blood, splattered his shirt, renting his emotions into tiny shreds that dappled the ground around them. She coughed again. Haplessly she was choking, drowning on her own fluid that sluggishly filled her lungs. And he could do nothing.  
  
"It isn't right!!" He kept yelling, banging the solid ground with his free hand, his limbs garnered and tired, twisted with the fate of no escape, no reprieve from the hell Jenova had created. "I won't give up. I won't. He'll pay for this. He'll pay for this! I'll never rest until he pays for this." He cupped her in his arms, sticky with her blood that ran down her back, thinking that if he just held on to her she could not leave, she would not die.  
  
Aeris' voice faltered, croaked; and Cloud's glittering eyes pleaded with hers, impeaching her to hold on. just to hold on.  
  
He could see her fading, softly but surly. Her eyes lost sheen, glimmering, only sweaty dots in the shadows. The lovely pink dress became rumpled and worn, her luxurious brown hair splintered, clammy under his tender caress. Her lips moved, but no sound came from their parched depths. Leaning over, he kissed her, a spark of passion enlightened for only a moment, before falling into the murky waters around them, gone.  
  
Desperately he gripped her pale hand-why hadn't he noticed how small she was before? How tiny...and so perfect in every way? Unblemished, unmarred, each projection only enhanced her beauty. She gasped once, a thin wail lost among babbling incessant stillness that looped and twirled its evil enchantments. A small green pebble rolled from her fingertips. It seemed to speak to him, telling him it was all over, done with...that all his life had been lived for this moment, and now that it was over, he was nothing.  
  
She lay, dead, in his arms, her shell of a body broken, and he sobbed. For nothing in the world had prepared him for this. The flower girl, Aeris in name only, was no longer.  
  
Behind him he heard the salient plop of something hitting the water, and in his grief he did not turn to fish it out. It broke the utter silence, shattering it.and everyone breathed behind him---holding to each other in hopes of sentimental appeasement. He went on rocking, stroking, bathing her head in blood, kissing her soft, innocent face.  
  
He stood suddenly, and everyone stared at him, not speaking, eyes carefully adverted, glancing sideways and quick to his, and away.  
  
"O...Cloud..." Tifa said, seeing Aeris' hair entwined in his, her hand held to his lips.  
  
He silenced her with only a look, and stepped toward the clear water, where the rock formed a little inlet, washing the shore with its greedy hands. Just the feel of the lake moving around him woke him from his deranged state. Aeris was limp in his arms, her head curved back, arms dangling at her sides.  
  
"I give you to the life spring, my love..." He tickled her ear with his breath as he waded deeper. "One day I will find you again..." Now, his voice cracked with emotion, but he shoved it back, and went on. "We will...we will be together forever. Nothing will keep us apart."  
  
Tears overwhelmed him, and he stopped, using her satin dress to mop his rugged face. It was seared with age, heavy, laden with defeat and anger and rage. This was the last time he would speak to her...this was the last time he would see her, his mind told him. But Cloud refused to except it. There had to be something more...it couldn't just end like this.  
  
The water was to his torso, and he stood, shivering in the dampness, holding Aeris' still-warm body close to his.  
  
"I will revenge you." He spoke--and--with those final words, he slipped her into the water, watching her drift, sinking unfettered from everything that had bound her. She was finally free from Hojo...free from every responsibility she had so heroically excepted. That he had pushed her to except.  
  
"I WILL REVENGE YOU!" He screamed, inflamed at last with furry, thrashing the waters about him, hearing the sharp intake of breath from the shore, and not caring. All that mattered was her. She, lost now, was all that mattered.she was all that had ever mattered.  
  
Gathering the tattered remains of his pride, Cloud turned, and sloshed to shore. He did not look back. 


End file.
